This invention relates generally to methods for analysis of nucleic acids and, more specifically to genomic sequence analysis useful in personalized medical analysis.
The diagnosis and treatment of human diseases continues to be a major area of social concern. The importance of improving health care is self evident, so long as there continues to be diseases that affect individuals, there will be an effort to understand the cause of such diseases as well as efforts to diagnose and treat such diseases. Preservation of life is an inherent force motivating the vast amount of time and expenditure continually invested into scientific discovery and development processes. The application of results from these scientific processes to the medical field has led to surprising advancements in diagnosis and treatment over the last century, and especially over the last quarter century. Such advancements have improved both the quality of life and life span of affected individuals.
However significant in both scientific and medical contribution to their respective fields, the progression of advancements have been slow and painstaking, generally resulting from step-wise trial and error hypothesis driven research. Moreover, with each advancement there can be cumulative progression in the overall scientific understanding of a problem, but there are few guarantees that the threshold needed to translate a discovery into a practical medical application has been achieved. Additionally, with the achievement of all too many advancements comes the sobering realization that the perceived final answer for a complete understanding of a particular physiological or biochemical process is, instead, just a beginning to a more complex process still needed to be dissected and understood.
Further complicating the progression of scientific advancements and its practical application can result from technical limitations in available methodology. Each discovery or advancement can push the frontiers of science to new extremes. Many times, continued progress can be stalled due to the unavailability or insufficiency in technological sophistication needed to continue studies or implement practical applications at the new extremes. Therefore, further advancements in the scientific discovery and medical fields necessarily have to await progress in other fields for the advent and development of more capable technologies and materials. As a result, the progression of scientific advancements having practical diagnostic and therapeutic applications can occur relatively slowly because it results from the accumulation of many smaller discoveries, contributions and advancements in technologies.
Genomic technology has been one such scientific advancement purported to open new avenues into the discovery and development processes and achieve new dimensions in the medical diagnostic and therapeutic fields. Genomic research has resulted in the sequencing of numerous whole genomes, including human. Futuristic speculation of genomic technology for medical applications has been directed to revolutionary diagnostic applications because of the precise physical characteristics purportedly available from complete genome sequences.
However, except for certain nucleic acid detection procedures amenable to selected targets, application of the vast amount of genomic information and technology to medical diagnosis and treatment is still in its infancy. One drawback hindering the application of genomics to practical medicine is due to the inability to select relevant sequences among a vast amount of non-informative sequences for analysis. In effect, the wheat cannot be sufficiently separated from the chaff prior to analysis, which leads to bias in the results.
For example, one problem with many nucleic acid selection methods is the loss of an accurate sequence representation in the selected population compared to the authentic genomic population. Selection methods amenable to medical applications generally amplify specific regions of the nucleic acids using a variety of methods including, for example, PCR, rolling circle, TMA, NASBA and the like. However, batch amplification needed for high throughput genomic applications results in significant distortion of the resulting sequence representation compared to the original mixture.
An alternative method for selecting nucleic acids from complex genomic mixtures employs destruction of the unwanted nucleic acid. These methods often rely on chemistries of specific bases or sequences and have limited applicability to large scale and/or high throughput analysis because of their inability to target any region of the genome. Therefore, while spectacular in its potential ramifications, the ability to accurately sort through, select and identify relevant genomic sequences among other genomic sequences in complex genomic DNA mixture has failed to allow application of this technology to achieve its potential. Furthermore, for personalized medicine, more rapid and less expensive techniques for genome analysis are required. In particular, it would be beneficial to develop techniques that would allow rapid, efficient and cost effective sequencing of genomic DNA. Such techniques would also be useful in diagnostics, for example, identification of microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria or bacterial strains, in particular virulent bacterial or viral strains, as well as forensic applications.
Thus, there exists a need for more rapid and efficient methods for accurately sequencing nucleic acids such as genomic DNA. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.